In its dealings with Haiti, Canada says one thing and does the opposite. Justin Trudeau has said that Haitians must approve the solutions to their country’s crisis. But Canada’s direct involvement with repressive policing in the country is at odds with the prime minister’s glib platitude.

Earlier this month, a tweet from Labour Against the Arms Trade stated that “the last 10 remaining senators in Haiti’s parliament officially left office, leaving the country without a single democratically elected government official. On Wednesday, a Canadian military aircraft delivered armoured vehicles to the Haitian national police.”

It’s a useful, if somewhat too simple, juxtaposition. For years Haitian elections have had little legitimacy and in mid-2021 the US- and Canada-led Core Group appointed a leader with no constitutional or popular legitimacy. Ariel Henry’s rule has led to a boost in Canada’s assistance to the Haitian National Police (HNP). Ottawa put $42 million into the HNP in 2022. In October of last year, US and Canadian warplanes delivered an initial batch of Canadian-made armored personnel vehicles to the Haitian police and Ottawa has pushed to increase UN assistance to the HNP. Last week in Port-au-Prince, Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Mike Duheme signed “a new Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate cooperation between our two countries and to strengthen the capacity of the HNP.”